Inspired by Travel: Venice

After our 24 hours in Paris (Friday's post), we made our way to Venice, Italy.

The airlines who co-sponsored the contest with the hotel chain did not fly into the Venice airport, so to get there, we flew from Paris to Milan, by way of Germany. Once we were in Milan, we traveled by bus to the train station.

I loved traveling by train. One image that stuck in my mind about the train trip: looking out at all the homes, most of them with some sort of green cloth hanging over doors or windows.

Once we got to Venice, we hopped on a boat - a Vaporetto - to get to our hotel. For the next seven days, we got lost on purpose. We'd leave the hotel and set out in one direction or another and wander down different paths. We crossed bridges, peeked into stores, observed people, examined architecture. I loved Paris, but I became part of Venice, and I've longed to return since the moment I left.

I took photos. Hundreds of photos.

But as I said in the previous post, most of the photos from this trip were lost during moves. I have only a handful remaining, tucked into a photo album.

When I began pulling photos to use in my artwork, I automatically turned to my trip album.

Rabbit Trail: Funny story about Torcello. We hadn't planned to go there, but we got off the boat at the wrong stop. I'm glad we did because we roamed around and one of the most vivid memories I kept was of this house.

What you can't see in the picture is what made it so memorable - there were chickens everywhere, in every color imaginable! I was so surprised and delighted by them all, I forgot to take pictures. We kept walking along the sidewalk, and just a short distance away (I'm not remembering how far, but it was close - possibly even right next door to the chickens), sat this beautiful old cemetery.

The islands of Venice are as individually unique as Venice itself. The colors of all the houses and storefronts delighted me!

Here are three of my favorite images. The original is on the left, the digitally enhance art piece is on the right.

Some of the products I've created with these images include cloth placemats, jigsaw puzzles, paperweights, notebooks, serving trays, playing cards, dart boards, ornaments, tote bags, magnets, keepsake boxes, and more.